YOSHIKO HEARS A DOG BARKING and comes to with a start. She looks at the clock. It is five past five. Takayoshi will be home soon, expecting his dinner. Daydreaming for well over an hour, she gets up from the table to put on the rice.
She pours water into her rice cooker, listening to it tinkle. Her life is uneventful now, but the past still haunts her. After the war, they joined thousands of families searching for some-where to put down permanent roots. Their family had grown during their years in Lemon Creek, where two more children were born. Yoshiko was pregnant with her sixth child when they left the internment camp in 1946. Life would have been so much simpler had they been allowed to return to Chemainus, but the ban prohibiting them from the coast was not lifted until 1949, the same year they finally won the right to vote.
There was nothing for them in Chemainus at any rate. Whatever possessions left behind had long since been sold for pennies. Yoshiko sometimes wonders if her lace wedding dress graced the body of another bride. It would have looked lovely on either of her two daughters, but that was not to be. She prefers to think some young woman wore it, rather than it be rendered useless by mildew or moths.
In 1947 Takayoshi finally found work in Fort William, a grain port and twin city with Port Arthur on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior. Over the years they became accustomed to the mind-numbing temperatures in winter and black flies in summer—but not the merger of Fort William and Port Arthur, of all things. They’ll never get used to calling it Thunder Bay.
When they arrived, Yoshiko believed the worst was behind them. In many ways it was. But political machinations aside, life did not spare her further tragedy. In 1983, one of her sons took his own life. Born during the family’s trek to the east, Dick was brilliant and schizophrenic. He spent many years in and out of psychiatric institutes, at times refusing medication to control his illness. Nothing in life prepared Yoshiko for his suicide. She always had a special fondness for him, praying that he would improve one day. She wonders if the disorder was a result of so much upheaval when he was in her womb. Perhaps it was her fault: she worried so while she carried him. Eight years after his death, it still cuts deep. She has come to accept that it always will.
Life carries on. Her grandchildren take their place in main-stream Canadian society for granted, a fact that comforts her. As for personal pleasure, summer sojourns fly-fishing in a tributary of the Upsala River offer hours free from the ache of memories. Perhaps it is the icy draft that reaches her nostrils when she wades into the rushing, frigid waters of the Seine; for Yoshiko, there is no smell quite so clean and fresh and alive.
Supper is almost ready when Takayoshi walks through the door at 5:30. Throwing his cap on the table, he slides into one of the chairs, ravenous. Takayoshi loves food, although he is not a big man. His children easily identify him in old Chemainus pictures by his cherubic smile. Now he wears thick-rimmed black glasses, a sedate choice that doesn’t obscure the mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
He leans back in his chair, describing in some detail the mah-jong game with the boys. Yoshiko stands at the stove and breaks an egg into the ramen noodles. She is setting his bowl on the table when he sees the letter.
After reading it, Takayoshi looks at his wife. “Well, what do you think?” he asks.
Yoshiko smiles, hesitating for a moment. “I think it would be nice to go back now,” she says.
“So do I,” Takayoshi says. He has longed to go back for years but didn’t have the nerve to suggest it. “Won’t it be fun to see all our old friends?”
“I suppose so,” Yoshiko replies. “I can’t even think who would still be around. But those murals they are going to paint and that cemetery monument they’ll be building. . . . I don’t know what to think of that.”
“Oh, it’s not going to be an ordinary reunion,” he says. “But I don’t think much about the town’s change of heart. Times change, and war is war. It’s as simple as that.”
While Yoshiko does up the dishes, Takayoshi retreats to his cellar. The idea of going back prompts him to rummage through the boxes of memorabilia they have somehow managed to keep. His wool wedding suit is down here somewhere, along with his King Scout trophy, his parents’ passports and old family pictures.
So much has come and gone in their lives since a Vancouver photographer arranged a family portrait in front of the old store. Takayoshi runs his finger across his father’s name above the entrance. Painted on the window in white capital letters, G. KAWAHARA faced the street on an angle to catch passersby where Oak and Esplanade converged. Takayoshi counts the windows on the second floor, trying to locate his bedroom. It faced Esplanade, right above his dad’s glass gas pumps on the street.
The picture puts a nice facade on life inside the building, where his childhood tumbled through good and bad times. On the far left, his father appears proud and gentle, the soft light on his face emphasizing his easy, relaxed smile and plump cheeks. Gihei lined up his accomplishments for the portrait: his business is the backdrop for his brand new 1925 Chrysler Royal, in front of which his family stretches. Takayoshi sits on the car’s running board, his Cocker Spaniel panting at his feet. His parents are on his left and his uncle, aunt, sister and the cook huddle together at the rear of the car.
Takayoshi remembers the suit and bow tie he had to wear for the occasion, although not the picture-taking itself. The suit was unspeakably awful; unless he sucked in his tummy, the fabric wouldn’t lie flat. Whenever his mother made him wear it, he was the object of ridicule in the neighbourhood.
It was the Tanouye boy who most often riled Takayoshi. He can still hear the taunts as they leave school.
“Fat pig, fat pig,” Haruyoshi yells.
Flying into a defensive rage, Takayoshi lashes out at Haruyoshi with a vengeance. But who wins the fist fight is immaterial. Gihei takes his son aside that afternoon.
“The Tanouyes are our tenants. You will not fight their son. You have disobeyed me before, and I will not stand for it,” Gihei shouts.
“But Papa, he was. . . .”
“I don’t care what he was doing. You must behave,” Gihei clamours. He marches Takayoshi outside, where he ties him to a telephone pole in the back alley, the community’s main thoroughfare. His mother, Shigeri, rescues him before long, but not without a reprimand.
“When will you learn, Takayoshi?”
“But it’s not fair, Mama,” he says, pushing out his lower lip and rubbing his arms where the rope cut into him.
“Do as you’re told,” Shigeri snaps.
Takayoshi bursts into tears and darts inside, bounding up the stairs two at a time to his bedroom.
Despite such incidents, many consider him a spoiled child. An only son, Takayoshi knows he has privileges and freedoms that few children have. He runs into the store and helps him-self to candy bars whenever he wants, sometimes sharing them with friends. But both his parents are so busy running various aspects of the business that he eats his meals alone and often falls asleep with his head on the parlour table, too afraid to go upstairs in the dark to his room.
His mother works in the kitchen, where the men from the bunkhouse eat, always with an ear for the bell in the store. Gihei drives taxi and runs the pool hall in back of the store. Some days the business associated with the bachelors in his bunkhouse and families in his motley collection of houses is a full-time job in itself. Gihei is in his mid-thirties in the 1920s when business in Chemainus peaks. He has come a long way for this.
When he was sixteen, Gihei left his father’s farm in Fukuoka prefecture and boarded a steamer bound for Hawaii. He went as an emigrant labourer in 1906, the twenty-ninth year of the Meiji era. It was a period of historic transition in Japan, for the emperor encouraged emigration to North America when he ushered in the Age of Enlightenment. After he came to power in 1868, Emperor Meiji moved to diminish the crippling effect brought on by the isolationist policies of his predecessors. Japan was desperately short of land and resources, and the emperor promoted emigration as a way of easing pressures at home. For the first time since 1637, Japanese citizens could leave their island nation legally. Most who did sought adventure, wealth, and prestige, intending to return home with elevated status.
But some left Japan without looking back. Takayoshi can’t be sure, but he feels his father is one. Gihei worked hard and risked much to establish himself. He never speaks of the two years he laboured in Hawaiian sugar cane fields or how he managed to get to Vancouver in 1908. It is not unusual for issei to keep those stories to themselves, along with the history of the families and conditions they left behind.
His mother, Shigeri, may have been a “picture bride,” for they were common among her contemporaries. Marriages were arranged through parents of eligible offspring and pictures were exchanged across the Pacific. A Shinto-Buddhist marriage ceremony often took place in Japan with a picture of the groom substituting for the groom himself. Once in Canada, they registered the marriage by marrying again. This practice served two purposes: it perpetuated the ancient custom of arranged matrimony and enabled Japanese bachelors to marry within their race, some 4,000 miles away.
A Methodist reverend married Shigeri Takahara to Gihei Kawahara on October 3, 1913 in Victoria, about five weeks after she emigrated from Fukuoka. The twenty-two-year-old merchant’s daughter may not have been happy about marrying a total stranger in a foreign land. Although women had the right to refuse, many were pressured to accept their fate.
Gihei took his bride to the farm where he was working on the outskirts of Duncan. Pioneers from Europe, other parts of Canada and the United States had settled in the region for over fifty years, but huge chunks of wilderness remained untouched. The sight of towering Douglas fir forests and calamitous gullies torpedoed what was left of Shigeri’s composure as the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway jostled its way up island. She concentrated on the centre aisle rather than look outside. It was best to keep her eyes lowered in any case. Japan bred a surface stoicism into its women and men, often for the purpose of saving face. Gihei had no concept of the depth of his wife’s anxiety. He was too preoccupied with maintaining his own composure to consider hers.
When Takayoshi is born in October 1915, Gihei is working in the bush for the Hillcrest Lumber Company, and Shigeri is a maid for Mr. and Mrs. Fall on their Cowichan Valley farm. The Kawaharas live in one of the lumber company shacks beside the sawmill, but Takayoshi’s earliest memories are from the inside of a wooden box on the Falls’ kitchen floor. As a toddler, Takayoshi plays with the Falls’ daughter, learning the hard way his place in life. Shigeri spanks him in the woodshed every time the children squabble. Who is at fault is not the issue. The Kawaharas are the peasants, and her son must learn to show respect for his superiors.
When he turns six, Takayoshi walks about five miles to school in Hillcrest. The isolation forces him to find ways to amuse himself. His best games are the ones he develops from his outings to the bush with his father. Takayoshi is in awe of the men and machines at work, mesmerized by the smell of sweat and the wood-fired steam engine, the elegant strength of revolving cables, the high-pitched whistle that sails through the air to give the all-clear, the scraping of logs across the forest floor.
Gihei is the “whistle-punk,” the one who signals the steam donkey operator to pull the logs into the spar tree. He never lets his son pull the whistle though, because a split-second error in timing could cost the chokerman’s life. Takayoshi is a content observer, however, enthralled with mechanics. At home, he simulates the operation and makes himself a model steam donkey. Takayoshi creates an engine out of an old clock, attaching a handle onto a motor he makes from the spring. Then he rigs a miniature spar tree with line and gathers branches to substitute for logs, cranking them into the spar tree with the handle.
When he isn’t playing with his donkey-clock engine, Takayoshi dons the caulk boots he fashioned by tying spikes onto the soles. He scrambles into the bush, pouncing on fallen logs and chasing squirrels madly. Hours go by in this soggy domain before hunger sets in and he trundles home, soaked but invigorated by the clean forest air.
Takayoshi is eight when his sister Chiyoko is born and the family moves to Chemainus, putting an abrupt end to the isolation. While Chemainus is a small town of less than 1,000, the Japanese population of 300 constitutes a significant minority. In addition, Gihei establishes himself as a community leader in Chemainus. Sugar cane fields, farms, and the woods are now lodged in his past. Gihei becomes a businessman and his own boss when he buys a store and surrounding property from Giichi Nakashima early in 1924. With $1,300 down and a mortgage of $3,700 on the six lots he purchases, Gihei invests his life savings with confidence. It is only months after the sawmill burned to the ground and shattered the town’s economic base. But when the company announces plans to build what will be the most modern sawmill in the world, Gihei swells with pride. He could not be better situated.
Takayoshi feels odd about this step up in life. Everything is so strange, like the way women wear their hair. He has never seen his mother hold her long black hair in her hands and roll it onto the top of her head so that it bulges out on the sides. Shigeri wears her hair up, but it curves smoothly against the side of her head into a soft twist at the back.
Before long, Takayoshi doesn’t give it any thought. He’s too busy playing with friends in his new neighbourhood. Compared to Hillcrest, there’s a lot to do, playing cowboys and Indians among the trees and rock bluffs, fishing for “shiners” off the wharf with a safety pin and string, running to Ning Chang’s for a steaming bowl of noodles topped with slices of hard-boiled egg.
When it’s too wet or cold to play outside, Takayoshi often slides into his father’s pool hall in the L-shaped room behind the store. He watches men playing pool, sitting among them on the thick wooden benches that straddle either side of a huge drum woodstove. Takayoshi dangles his feet and rocks back and forth on the bench, surrounded by the steamy warmth of rain evaporating off men’s wool work shirts. A cacophony of Japanese spits through air laced with thick cigarette smoke; those not playing pool are reading Japanese newspapers, talking politics and sipping small cups of hot green tea.
Masa Nishimura’s barber shop is partitioned off in a corner, where most of the Japanese men and native Indian stevedores come for a haircut. The stevedores find her barber shop convenient while they wait for the next ship to dock at the wharf down the street. Unbeknownst to them, Masa charges her Japanese customers a penny less.
Next to the pool hall on the other side, Takayoshi’s mother works in the kitchen, preparing meals for the bachelors living in his father’s two-storey bunkhouse. The bunkhouse is across the alley that cuts through the heart of Kawahara camp. Set on the northern edge of Gihei’s property, it rises above the collection of homes that line the north side of the alley. It towers over the upstairs floor of the Hashimotos’ home, where stu-dents take Japanese lessons until the community hall is built in 1927. A few doors down from there, boys gather to practice judo in the Dojo Bah. Without mats to break their falls, they lay canvas over a sawdust-covered wooden floor and leave bruised and sore, sometimes injured in this tough process of becoming a man.
Gihei’s garage is at the far end of the alley near a vegetable garden and a small orchard in the haphazard complex. And somewhere in the middle of it all, somewhere secret because it is illegal, cases of Japanese sake are stashed behind a large wood shed.
On the south side of the alley across from the Dojo Bah, the community bathhouse, or ofuro, attracts daily traffic from early evening on. Gallons of scalding water splash into a large wooden tub just before the day shift ends at the mill. The tub is soon full of aching bodies steeped in steam. After the men are done, it is the women and children’s turn, slipping out of their kimonos into the deep, still calm of hot water.
A few families have the resources and space to build their own baths, but most come to the communal tub and think nothing of the nudity. Occasionally a peeping torn from the habujin community skulks his way along the alley to feast his eyes on flesh, but few are nervy enough. For the Japanese, the everyday routine is one of few pleasures in lives marked by long hours of hard work.
Like other Japanese Canadian children in Chemainus, Takayoshi joins his friends for an hour of Japanese school after the public school day is over. He doesn’t like either school much and has little incentive to excel, knowing he will inherit his father’s business.
He may not like school, but Takayoshi wastes no time in joining the 2nd Chemainus Troop that Shige Yoshida forms in June 1930. The troop often competes against the all-white 1st Chemainus Troop, which spurns any Canadians of Japanese ancestry. For boys like Takayoshi, scouting is enormous fun. Mingling with hakujin troops at jamborees in Victoria and Washington State, Takayoshi rides on a wonderful sense of belonging to a world normally out of bounds.
Over the next three years, he earns twelve badges and be-comes a King’s Scout. No other boy of Japanese ancestry in Canada has attained this rank, prompting the mill manager, Mr. Humbird, to award him the Humbird Cup for his efforts. In the summer of 1933, patrol leader Takayoshi Kawahara puffs up like popcorn as he climbs the stage to accept the trophy. He surveys the crowd below and grins at the 1st Chemainus Troop.
But Takayoshi has to earn different points among his own. The year before becoming a King’s Scout, Gihei celebrates his forty-second birthday with a sumo wrestling tournament. In the days leading up to the May 30 celebration, many in the community lend a hand. Shigeri’s nephew builds a wooden platform in front of Gihei’s garage at the west end of the alley. Baseball coach Bari Kasahara crouches on Yoshiko’s kitchen floor painting oriental landscapes onto one kesho-mawashi after another. Tomorrow the men will wear the floor-length aprons in the ring-entering ceremony. Others drape colourful banners and flags above the garage, while the women prepare delicacies. And someone, perhaps Gihei himself, digs out a sake stash for the all-night party.
Takayoshi takes the day off from his trucking business on Gihei’s birthday, sprinting here and there to help with last-minute chores. He is a chunky seventeen-year-old, proud of his father’s ability to celebrate with such fanfare, and equally proud to take his place in the ring-entering ceremony.
One by one the young men mount the platform, as Gihei announces the names of the east and west divisions: Satoshi, Iwao, Kaname, Norimichi, Hitoshi, and Mitsuyuki; Takayoshi, Yoshitero, Harunobu, Shunichi, Kanichi, and Noboru. They face the community in a circle, displaying the elaborate aprons, and then turn inward to face each other. After clapping, they lift their arms skyward and hitch up their aprons to show they carry no weapons—each movement a ritual dating back to the sport’s ancient links with Shinto worship. Thus a generation of future community leaders announces their purity to the gods, and the tournament begins.
When his turn comes to wrestle, Takayoshi throws his weight against his opponent with particular relish. He wins some fights that way, but others he loses to more skillful peers. The street echoes with the sound of stamping feet and shouting all afternoon. Mothers rock babies in their arms at the back, while older children slice through the crowd for a better view.
The community rallies around the same location on other memorable occasions. Just down from the hall that they built to celebrate Canada’s Diamond Jubilee in 1927, the area is the pulse of the community. On a sultry night in 1939, they congregate here again.
Now married, Takayoshi and Yoshiko join friends and neighbours in the lot beside the garage. Tomorrow’s July i parade will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the sawmill, which so many depend on for their livelihood. Tonight they will finish the wooden-frame float that carpenters hammered onto Takayoshi’s flatbed truck.
Kaname Izumi is rushing about when the couple arrives. “Hello, Yoshiko, Tak. Sure glad you’re here. Need all the hands we can get.”
They set to work, listening to Kaname ramble on about one of his escapades. Earlier, he and his brothers sped out to Westholme to dig some moss-covered earth.
“Well, it wasn’t me who tripped over the old grump, but I got us out of there with the moss,” Kaname boasts. “That old Indian, he just bolted up out of nowhere, hollering, ‘What the Sam hell are you guys doing, stealing my earth?’
“I walked up to him and said, ‘Oh, we didn’t mean any harm, sir. We just want some moss for our float in the parade.’
“He grumbled something under his breath and waved us on. ‘Well, okay,’ he says. ‘Just don’t leave any mess behind.’
“We dug that moss like there was no tomorrow. Never seen my brothers move so fast. Back on the road, we laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes,” Kaname says, winking at Yoshiko.
She smiles. “Kaname, you really are a character.” Looking over the frame, she adds: “But you did the job well. There isn’t a bit of wood showing. It looks like a perfect little moss-covered hill.”
“Heck, that was easy,” Kaname replies. “Sticking those branches in the moss so they’d stay, that was the tricky part. Well, getting them to look like real trees wasn’t easy either. But now comes the fine artwork, and I think you women better take over.” They laugh and nod, deft fingers already skittering over the branches.
Yoshiko has been folding delicate Japanese paper into cherry blossoms for the last two weeks. Piles of soft flowers were accumulating in corners, drifting across the floor. Now she works alongside the others, fastening them onto branches and chattering in the twilight. As the float transforms, a warm evening breeze rustles the paper flowers with the same chir-ring sound of a zephyr combing life into a stand of bamboo.
The next morning feather-tipped clouds skirt through blue sky. By ten o’clock, it is pleasantly warm. Inside several homes, issei women knowledgable in the art of kimono dressing fuss over the young girls who will wave as their float drifts along the dirt streets.
Takayoshi is busy buffing up the shine on his truck. His German Shepherd, Rex, loiters close by. Inside, Yoshiko is pressing his favourite royal blue shirt and navy slacks. She is almost done when Takayoshi walks in.
“Is my suit ready?” he asks. “I’ve only got half an hour to wash and dress.”
“I’ll be done in a minute. What’s it like out?”
“Gorgeous. It’s going to be a great parade,” Takayoshi says, heading to the washroom.
He is securing his red bow-tie when the kimono-clad misses arrive for their escort, giggling with excitement.
“Oh, don’t you girls look beautiful!” Yoshiko exclaims. “Let me see you twirl your umbrellas,” she says, turning them around one by one. Takayoshi steps into the room. “Don’t they look adorable?” Yoshiko asks.
“Sweet as sugar,” he replies, winking. “Let’s go.”
Outside, Rex lingers alongside the truck. Takayoshi never goes anywhere without him, but today he’ll have to sit in the cab. The girls climb the wooden steps onto the spongy moss and they are off. Yoshiko strolls around the corner onto Oak Street, where friends are milling about.
Other townsfolk stream out from every corner of the community, lining the boardwalks along the parade route. Unlike other parts of the country, Chemainus has escaped the worst of the Depression. Although the sawmill is curtailing production and has cut wages, at least it hasn’t shut down. This occasion celebrates their good fortune and calls for nothing less than their Sunday best.
The mill whistle blows at noon, signalling the military band to begin its brassy version of “God Save the King.” The crowd sings along as the band marches past. Mill manager John Humbird rides behind in his sleek black limousine, his plump wife at his dark, bulky side, smiling like a Cheshire cat. Then the procession of floats begins its descent along Oak Street, turning up Esplanade to swing by the hospital for the patients’ enjoyment.
Takayoshi gears down as he heads towards his community at the bottom of Oak Street. He searches for Yoshiko and his parents as he rounds the corner onto Esplanade, waving proudly when he catches Gihei’s eye. Absolutely everyone is there when the float shimmers like a mirage down the hot, dusty street.
Driving past the hospital and up towards the train station in the centre of town, Takayoshi sees some hakujins pointing at them. Women whisper in their children’s ears, lifting their little hands to wave. Others stiffen and turn away when they see Takayoshi at the wheel. He shrugs, pushing his feelings out past the hood of his truck where nothing can bother him today.
He brakes at the train station and leans out the window. People are hanging over the platform above him to see what’s coming. To their disappointment, the parade is over. Hum-bird is talking to parade officials near the podium, getting ready to announce the winner.
Takayoshi and Rex jump out and wander back to visit the girls, who are still giggling and twirling their umbrellas. Yoshiko and several friends arrive, thronging to fuss over their flowery kimonos some more.
Humbird climbs onto the podium and surveys the towns-folk. He is thinking that they aren’t a bad lot, obedient and law abiding for the most part. Humbird’s namesake, his late grandfather, created the Victoria Lumber and Manufacturing Company when he bought the old sawmill off coal baron Robert Dunsmuir in 1889. Although there have been fatal accidents, the mill has none of the violent history associated with striking coal miners in nearby Ladysmith. Even though he pays the Orientals twenty percent less than the white workers, they have still put together the prettiest float.
The crowd is restless, so he begins.
“I want to say how proud grandfather would have been today,” Humbird says. “Everyone knows that these are hard times, yet you have outdone yourselves with so many ingenious and beautiful floats. You all deserve a big pat on the back.
“My wife and I want to thank you for your ongoing loyalty during these difficult years. You’re one heck of a town, Chemainus!”
The crowd breaks into applause. Humbird raises his hand.
“And now, folks, what you’ve been waiting for. The winner is . . . the cherry-blossom float.”
Takayoshi beams. He is so excited he doesn’t even hear who the runners-up are. The girls are jumping up and down, ex-claiming, “Yoshi-san, we won, we won. Can you believe it? We really won!” Yoshiko and her friends are dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs. Rex leaps onto the float, wagging his tail so that his whole behind moves wildly, and everyone laughs.
Takayoshi works hard during these years. As a community service, he hauls batches of cast-off Douglas fir from the mill and builds fires to heat the forty-five-gallon tank of water for the ofuro. If Gihei isn’t taxiing someone in his 1937 Chrysler Royal, he helps his son get the communal bath ready.
This daily chore is time-consuming, but Takayoshi still has to earn a living. He hauls booming chains up to Parksville for the sawmill and returns with 100-pound sacks of coal that he sells for a small profit. He hauls hay for local farmers, all kinds of lumber and furniture for families moving away. He hauls bricks off barges for fireplaces and chimneys. He drives his uncle to Duncan to sell fish.
Takayoshi feels free driving his five-ton GM truck with Rex. He can’t explain it, but something stirs every time he starts the engine. When Takayoshi got his first truck and started his hauling business in 1932, Rex used to jump right on top of the hood and ride up there, his nose to the wind. Someone put a stop to it, claiming it was dangerous. From then on, Rex rode in the back when it was empty and, when it was full, in the cab with Takayoshi.
While he was still a bachelor, Takayoshi shared that freedom with his chums too. They are the best years of his youth—the truck bursting with friends as he races along dirt roads, the radio blaring, spinning the wheels into nowhere. They bump along as far as Maple Bay or Cowichan Bay and even go to Koksilah if he has enough gas. They hatch plans most Saturday nights to see a movie—Takayoshi likes westerns—or put lotteries on men playing Fan-Tan in a Chinatown backroom in Duncan.
One afternoon Hitoshi and Noboru climb into the cab and Kaname and Satoshi hop in the back. They pick up some Cumberland girls working in Duncan and drive out of town. Suddenly, Takayoshi stops the truck. “Sorry, girls,” he says, “looks like I’ve run out of gas. You’ll have to hike it home.”
They walk about a quarter of a mile before Takayoshi starts the truck again and drives up alongside. “Just kidding,” he says, laughing. “Hop in.”
The girls eye one another. It’s a long way back to town, so they jump in the back. Takayoshi is whistling, oblivious to the silent daggers the girls are throwing his way. Kaname and Satoshi are chuckling and teasing them about the trick, but they aren’t humoured. “Stupid boys,” they yell when they get out in Duncan. Heads held high and hands linked together, they march down the street leaving the boys rocking back and forth in laughter.
Takayoshi and his friends head toward Konkui House, a cheap Chinese restaurant that serves the most divine smoked pork tenderloin. They savour the rich morsels of meat, watching Chinese cooks in food-smeared aprons stir sizzling concoctions in huge woks. Steam from the cooking mixes with thick clouds of cigarette smoke while the boys jabber about the latest baseball scores.
Takayoshi has seven years of such fun before marriage crimps that lifestyle. He has other responsibilities now, so weekends on the road with the boys become part of his past. Still, every morning he climbs into his truck and goes off to work. On the road with his faithful friend, he is free again.
Three years after marrying, Takayoshi is the father of two beautiful boys and Yoshiko is expecting again. Fatherhood has not been a terribly difficult adjustment, given the fact that his wife does most of the work. But it has changed him in some ways, settling him down to more serious thought about providing for his children in an increasingly uncertain world.
One morning he is in the pool room listening to the issei men, many of whom believe Japan is winning the war in Asia. He fears their views will bring trouble. Otoji Okinobu, a divorcee who works as a tally clerk at the sawmill, is holding the floor.
“Emperor Hirohito’s power descends from the gods. Japan will rule the world,” he crows. “The west is weak and inferior. Soon they will surrender.”
Murmurs ripple around the room, but Takayoshi cannot stand it. “You are wrong, Okinobu-san,” he says, stiffening his shoulders. “Japan is losing. Your newspapers are spreading lies.”
“And yours underestimate Japan’s might,” Otoji snaps back. “Just wait and see.”
“Why don’t you go back then? Canada isn’t good enough for you, is it?” Takayoshi retorts.
Fuming, Gihei interjects. “Okinobu-san does much for our community. Now, apologize!”
“Yes, father,” he mumbles, retreating like a defensive child. “I am sorry, Okinobu-san.”
Otoji nods abruptly and buries his head in a newspaper. Takayoshi sips his tea, hoping to ease the slight nausea in his gut. Relations with the hakujin community are more strained than ever. There’s a new edge in people’s voices when they call him “Jap.” Long after they spit it out, Takayoshi feels the sting.
Suddenly Gihei turns the radio up, hearing the broadcaster announce a special news bulletin.
“We have confirmed reports that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor early this morning, sinking or crippling nineteen naval vessels. Casualties are estimated at over 3,000, including some civilians.”
Takayoshi meets his father’s eyes across the room.
The jabbering that follows the broadcast forces him into the cool December fog outside. Rex lumbers up alongside. He lays a hand on the dog’s head and stumbles toward the highway. It is Sunday, the one day when the mill shuts down, and the street is quiet. He tries to sort out his thoughts, but they just go around in circles. He thinks out loud, talking under his breath: “Japan has bombed the American navy. That is so stupid, I can’t believe it. But if they can do that, they sure as heck could invade here. The hakujins may call me a ‘JaP,’ but I am Canadian and will fight for my country. I will defend my home and wife and children. Oh God, what will happen to us now?”
Takayoshi’s heart is pounding at the prospect of going to war and the tensions that that will create among his people and the wider community. He reaches the highway and turns to look down the street. The lumber yard is disappearing between folds of grey mist. He must go home and talk to his wife. Watching Rex sniff his way back down the street, Takayoshi wishes his world were so simple.
The next day the United States declares war on Japan and begins arranging to intern its citizens of Japanese ancestry in prisoner-of-war camps. A white supremacist group and right-wing politicians from British Columbia use the American precedent to force an issue they have clammered about for years: to rid the province of all Japanese, once and for all. Using the powers of the War Measures Act, Prime Minister MacKenzie King and his parliament begin passing orders-in-council. Individuals and communities up and down the west coast stagger from the shock of each successive order. At the same time, they adopt an attitude of shikataga-nai, meaning it can’t be helped.
Takayoshi feels an epidemic of sorts is on the rampage. He wonders how this world ever felt secure, whether it was an illusion now torn apart like a body dragged up from the sea bottom, half eaten by crabs. Yoshiko worries constantly. He is hot-tempered and easily riled, unable to concentrate.
Meanwhile, rumours are rampant.
“Did you hear what they’re going to do now?” Kaname asks Takayoshi one day.
“I’ve heard so many things. I don’t know who or what to believe,” Takayoshi replies.
“Well, I heard that police are going to confiscate our cars and then they’re going to ship us out.”
“Where?”
“God only knows. Papa says we should prepare for the worst. He keeps whisper ing shikataga-nai over and over again. He is almost as depressed as when Mama died.”
One by one, the rumours are confirmed. They learn police are going to confiscate not only their cars but also their radios, guns and cameras. Gihei decides to store his taxi at McBride’s service station before the RCMP come for it.
Takayoshi follows his father’s Chrysler to McBride’s in the pouring rain. The windshield wipers in his truck can’t keep up with the torrents sloshing over the glass. He can barely see the rear bumper through the rain as the Chrysler passes the Horseshoe Bay Inn. Gihei is handing over the keys when Takayoshi arrives.
“That’s it, then, Mr. McBride,” Gihei says, giving him the storage money. “You’ll take good care, won’t you?”
“You bet,” McBride replies. “I’ll turn the engine over regular, make sure she keeps purrin’ along. Don’t you worry.”
“Goodbye,” Gihei says, turning to go.
“See ya.”
Gihei jumps in the truck, soaking. Rain streams down his face and neck. Takayoshi points toward home and checks his rear-view mirror. McBride is driving the Chrysler into his garage.
“There she goes, Papa. I wonder if you’ll see her again.”
Gihei is looking straight ahead, mopping his face with a handkerchief. “We’ll be back. The war can’t last forever.”
Takayoshi decides to find a private buyer for his truck. He works throughout December, although his hakujin clientele falls off dramatically. In January, he sells his five-ton truck to the sawmill sales manager for about $1,200, unhappily absorbing a $2,000 loss.
Next he finds a home for Rex. Takayoshi gives him to a Mountie one day in February, when spring makes a fleeting, unexpected appearance. He wishes it hadn’t. Somehow the sunshine focuses unforgettable detail on the parting. Sliding his calloused hands over Rex one last time, he says goodbye as the officer leads him to his car. Takayoshi feels like someone has thrown a brick at his stomach. Rex is the kind of dog who will go with anyone. Of all people, it has to be a Mountie.
The nightmares start that night. He sees Rex through a small window in a shiny steel door. A bulky man with no hair is tying the dog to a long, steel table. Then he sticks needles into Rex’s rump and brands him with a hot iron. No matter how hard he pushes, Takayoshi can’t budge the steel door.
Orders come and go from January to March. They hear that Japanese nationals are going to be shipped to road camps in the province’s interior. Sure enough, a Mountie knocks on their door one night to serve Gihei his notice. Takayoshi translates. His wife and him are accompanying Gihei to Vancouver to-morrow, and he will go to road camp from there. They finish packing last-minute things and are ready in the morning.
Takayoshi hates goodbyes. He is almost panicky about pushing off. Trying to rush past the pain, he manages a fare-well wave of sorts to his mother. Within a few weeks, he wishes he hadn’t been in such a hurry. They stay with Gihei’s friends in Vancouver at first, where Gihei draws up a will before leaving. Everything is so chaotic when Gihei boards the train the next morning that Takayoshi can’t hear his father’s parting words of advice. It’s all a blur after that, but Hastings Park jolts him out of his daze soon enough. The stench alone makes him thoroughly regretful that they left home early.
A few days later, Takayoshi overhears some men in nearby bunks whispering about not going to road camps in Ontario. Their plan is to hide out in the Tairiku Nippo offices, a Japanese newspaper in Vancouver, and he gets swept up in the scheme.
It is a windy day in March when Takayoshi and his comrades get passes to leave the compound. About seventy young men leave separately and meet at a prearranged spot outside. The walk to the newspaper building on Cordova Street gives him plenty of time to regret his decision. When they reach the building several hours later, Takayoshi is hungry and tired. After spending a long night on a cold hard floor, he knows in his bones the plan won’t work. The RCMP raid their hideout that day, making a mockery of their futile escape.
The Mounties escort them to the immigration building and then the police barracks where they undergo physicals. Arrangements are progressing to send them to work on a stretch of the Trans-Canada north of Lake Superior.
Meanwhile, Takayoshi learns that Yoshiko has had the baby. A Mountie accompanies him to the hospital, waiting outside the ward while he visits his wife and newborn. A week later, he is gone.
It is late March when he arrives in Schreiber. The temperature will not warm for another two months. Takayoshi jumps down from the cattle truck that brought him from the train station and decides right away to work in the cookhouse. No way is he going to build roads in this cold.
The air freezes his nostrils as he surveys the landscape. Nothing but scrub trees stick out of miles and miles of snow. Takayoshi pulls his wool cap further down. He finds his bunk, throws his bags on top and slips over to the cook-house. The next morning he is peeling potatoes for the lunch meal.
Life settles into a routine, and the men become friends. The food is better than the slop they ate at Hastings Park, which isn’t saying much. But for the first time since leaving home, Takayoshi can cook himself bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Spring finally arrives in May. Takayoshi is accustomed to the flat, barren land now, but familiarity switches to more discomfort when blackflies descend. In June the river starts to run. He leaves the cookhouse in Schreiber to work on the log drive for pulp mills in the area, landing a job in a Sudbury mill. Summer is followed by a spectacular autumn. The ground has frozen over again when an envelope with censored contents arrives. Dated several months before, the letter in-forms him that Yoshiko is sick. Now he understands why she hasn’t replied to any of his letters. It wasn’t because she was angry with him for getting into trouble after all.
Unable to leave the area without permission, Takayoshi runs to the mill superintendent’s house and knocks on the door.
“Who is it?” a gruff voice shouts.
“It’s me, boss,” Takayoshi replies.
The door opens and he finds himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” he sputters, waving his letter in the air. “Just found out my wife is sick.”
“So?”
“Well, can I go tomorrow?”
His boss stares at him for a long minute and finally lowers the gun. “Yeah,” he says.
Takayoshi shuffles his feet.
“Well, go on. What are you waiting for?”
My pay, sir.
“We’ll mail it,” he says, slamming the door.
Walking back to the bunkhouse, Takayoshi kicks rocks out of his path. He’d like to pitch a boulder right into his boss’ living room. He packs his belongings in a fury and tries in vain to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes the ugly grin above the shotgun leers larger than life. Takayoshi creeps out of bed at dawn. He can’t get out of Sudbury soon enough.
But he can’t go west immediately either. First he has to report back to Schreiber and get an RCMP permit. Once there, he finds that a special constable substituting for the regular Mountie can only issue him an unofficial permit. Takayoshi boards the next train heading west, panicking at every whistle stop where Mounties might check his papers. He can’t over-come the fear that they’ll haul him off to jail.
Feeling like a fugitive, Takayoshi can’t relax between stops either. A group of air force men harass him for two days, threatening to string him up. Among them is a Metis man who intervenes, moderating the threats somewhat. Cowering in his wooden seat as the train chugs across the frozen prairie, Takayoshi is a nervous wreck when the men finally get off in Moose Jaw. Two days later, he disembarks among a throng of RCMP in Nelson, where the threat of them checking his permit is greatest. When he finally hops on a bus to Lemon Creek, he stops shaking inside and goes momentarily numb. It is late November, not as frigid as Schreiber, but damp and penetrating nonetheless.
Yoshiko has been healthy for months when Takayoshi arrives. Hearing footsteps crunch through the snow, she looks out the window and grabs Shirley off the floor. She opens the door and smiles. His daughter is eight months old and acts strange, but Tom and Brian jump up and down, clamouring for a hug. Finally they are together as a family again, including Gihei, who is back from road camps along the Yellowhead-Blue River highway. With his brother-in-law, sister-in-law, his parents, and his own family, Takayoshi adds one more body to an already cramped hut. But they concentrate on making the best out of the situation, still hopeful that one day they will call Chemainus home again.
Those hopes are shattered two years later when Gihei gets a cheque for the sale of his Chemainus property. The news does not come as a complete shock, but the will to wrestle on dies. When he was still in the road camp the summer of 1942, Gihei received a letter from the government offering to relieve him of his assets. Unable to collect rents, he had defaulted on his mortgage payments and property taxes.
Rather than give in, he provided government authorities with names of people who owed him money. Aware that the likelihood of collecting those pre-war debts was remote, Gihei’s strategy was to keep government agents busy until the war was over and he could go home. But the war dragged on, and he lost the battle with time.
Some months after Frank and Mary Anne Crucil bought his property for $5,000 in August 1944, Gihei receives a cheque for $1,900—the mortgage company and the municipality sharing the difference. Now in his early fifties, his life unravels before him: the sugar cane fields and the farming, the logging and the business he built up for his son, all gone.
Takayoshi is getting cold in the cellar. He stretches his legs and checks his watch. It is almost time for the evening news, so he leaves his pictures and papers to tidy in the morning.
The next day he returns to the cellar and surveys the fragments from his past strewn about the floor. A photo of his truck triggers his dream from the night before. For the first time in decades, he dreamt of Rex, the wind coursing through his pelt as they cruised down a dirt road back home.